PongSats on TV!
KXTV, the Sacramento ABC news station, aired their story about PongSat. They have
the video available, (streaming),
at their site. It includes some great scenes from Away 26. A big thank
you goes out to Dale Schornack at News 10!

To save time and money we are recycling the fins from an earlier ML
rocket for use on one of the new ones.
The older ML suffered a crack in the airframe on the last landing. The fins,
however, are in excellent condition.
The fins are carbon with a foam core and attach to the rocket with Kevlar.
Refurbishing involves band sawing
the fin off the airframe then grinding off the kevlar then sanding off the finish.

6/26/2005

Sometimes the projects are big and other times they're small.
We're building a scale model of the next Ascender.
Only the main envelopes part of the model are complete, (as in the real version).
The model as it is now is 23 inches
long, (each arm), and is made of fiberglass over foam. Next for the model is the
nose, tail tips and the cross strut.

6/20/2005

We've begun to experiment with different rack designs for the Away
28 roller mission. Even though it looks big
this rack weighs just over two pounds.

Another Away 26 pic:

Inspecting the rigging before launch.

6/18/2005

Today an ABC news crew came to the office and did an interview for a
story about the PongSat program. As soon as I
know when they're going to air it I'll post the who, where and when. The
reporter is very good and and always makes
me feel at ease, (however, it could be that I'm just a big ham).

A great deal of progress was made today on the design of the next Ascender. This
vehicle is going to be cool....

T-minus ten hours till the next build session.

6/15/2005

This weekends build session was filled with cleaning, buffing and
polishing of the rocket airframe mandrel.
Ah the glamour of space... The mandrel is used to make the body of the rocket.

We're considering making the airframe of the next MicroSat Launcher
(ML) Rocket out of fiberglass instead of carbon
fiber. This will save a few dollars. Fiberglass costs just a fraction of
carbon fiber. The mission this rocket will be
flying will not need as much performance. The first four Mach Glider launches will
be under 20,000 feet. The much
heaver weight of the fiberglass is a good trade for cost on these flights. The
Block1 ML, (two built), had a fiberglass
airframe. This will be a Block 4 ML with a Block 1 airframe, however, it won't have
the upgrades planned for the Block 5
rocket. Block 4.5 anyone?

One mission never seems to end before the beginning of the next
one. The team took the antennas off the van and
started reassembling them. They were still up there from the Away 26 mission.
The antennas have become a little
battered and worn from these last missions. Time to retune. Antenna tuning is
a task that some people love and
others just hate. Good progress was made last Saturday, however, tuning is likely to
continue for the next couple of
build sessions.

More Away 26 pics:

Parallax has supported JPA for over 30
missions.
PongSats!!

Sunburst at the Earth's ceiling.

6/06/2005

Away 27

There is a new mission in the mix. The spread spectrum
telemetry system on Away 26 preformed well enough
to show that we're heading in the right direction, but, not well enough to for the demands
of the roller deployed
balloon mission. The original Away 27 mission has been bumped to Away
28. The new Away 27 mission will
carry the upgraded spread spectrum telemetry system and qualify it for more complex
flights.

Away 27 will be a small vehicle, under five pounds. In
addition to the telemetry system, there will be PongSats
and at least one digital camera on board.

We expect to fly Away 27 mid summer.

Away 28

Away 28
Dark Sky Station with rubber balloons.

Away 28 is a technology development mission for the Dark Sky Station
(DSS). The last DSS we flew used round
rubber balloons like those on Away 26.
The next DSS will use plastic balloons like those used on Away 25. Having
ten tall balloons all streaming high above the station has many problems, not the least of
which is tangling. To avoid
all this flapping around the balloons will be kept on rollers. During takeoff the
balloons will only be a small bubble
of helium held low on the frame. As the balloon expands during the climb the roller
will unroll more balloon material.

Away 28 will test a single roller deployment system. This technology will help open
the way for the extremely large
Dark Sky Stations to come.

New ML Rocket

This fall we will start deploying Mach Gliders from the MicroSat Launcher (ML) rocket, (see
the balloon deployment
video on the video page). Time to build another
rocket! Last Saturday we pulled out the airframe mandrel and the
molds. Some minor repairs need to be done on the carbon ovens an and the jigs and
we'll be ready start building.

Some of the MLs carbon fiber parts fresh out of the molds. (ML #3).

This rocket will be the last of the Block 4 vehicles before moving
to the larger Block 5 ML.